


Infinity Came Down And Settled Over Me

by artamisward



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2737400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artamisward/pseuds/artamisward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though sometimes Laura can see the question in her eyes—once she saw the words forming on her lips—Carmilla would never ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinity Came Down And Settled Over Me

Carmilla never asks.

Even though sometimes Laura can see the question in her eyes—once she saw the words forming on her lips—Carmilla would never ask.

That’s one more thing Laura loves about her: she’s selfless, even though Carmilla herself doesn’t think so.

But the subject must be broached, if only to give them both a concrete decision on what’s going to happen. Laura decides she must do it because she understands Carmilla can’t.

She looks at herself in the mirror. The hair at her temples is greying and there are faint lines around her mouth and eyes. The lines are from happiness creasing her lips and reaching her eyes, and she likes how the grey gives her sobriety and gravitas. But sometimes when she looks at Carmilla, who is still as devastatingly beautiful and youthful as when she waltzed into her dorm at Silas, Laura feels old.

She’s noticeably older than Carmilla, at least in appearance. And that’s what the world sees. They’ve had to move several times in their three decades together, more so in the last decade. They always move when the whispers of her _inappropriate relationship with such a young woman_ start reaching her ears. The gossip always alludes to the fact that she’s the December in their May-December romance. The irony doesn’t escape her. _If only they knew_.

She closes her eyes and sighs. _What am I going to do?_

“You’re beautiful.”

Laura turns abruptly, her heart thumping hard against her ribs. She didn’t hear Carmilla and the fact that the vampire can still surprise her is a bit thrilling, to be honest, but also a bit mortifying.

“Hey.” Her hand flutters to her chest in embarrassed nervousness. She rolls her eyes at her behavior and at the smirk Carmilla isn’t hiding.

“What’s up, creampuff?”

Laura smiles at the old nickname. She hasn’t heard it in some time. Carmilla leans in to kiss the edge of Laura’s smile. She hovers close after several kisses that have migrated to open lips. Her cool hands tuck errant grey strands behind Laura’s ears. “What’s wrong?” Camilla’s eyes are as gentle as her hands.

Laura kisses the palm cradling her cheek. “I’m getting old.”

Carmilla snorts softly. “Let’s revisit that conversation when you’re getting closer to four hundred rather than fifty.”

Laura smiles at her sadly but says nothing. She can see the shift in Carmilla’s demeanor immediately. The vampire sucks in a breath she doesn’t need and clamps down hard on her teeth so the question her eyes are asking doesn’t escape her mouth.

The moment has arrived but Laura hesitates, uncertainty grips her. “I’m aging…”

“You _are_ beautiful, Laura,” Carmilla cuts her off before she can get all the words stuck in her throat out, “More beautiful than you’ve ever been.”

“Not bored of me yet?” The tremble in her voice betrays her uncertainty.

Carmilla presses her forehead to Laura’s. “Never.” And, it’s so sincere and aching with tenderness that Laura has to swallow tears.

She takes Carmilla’s hands in her own and brings them up between them. They stand connected as if making vows or making a covenant, heads bowed and fingers laced in the space between their hearts. “Do you want eternity with me?” Laura asks in a hushed voice.

“I want…” Carmilla closes her eyes and Laura immediately misses the dark eyes that remind her of the vastness and depth of the night sky “…whatever you’re willing to give me, sweetheart.” She’s trying to be flippant but Laura can feel the tension in the complete stillness of the body before her and she can hear the _hope_ between all the words she’s saying.

Laura kisses Carmilla then, so fully and so softly that it’s her mouth pressing _I love you, I love you, I love you and want to give you everything_ into Carmilla’s lips. The vampire trembles against her.

“What is it like?” The question wafts quietly into the space between their mouths.

Carmilla doesn’t answer for several long moments. And when she does, her eyes close against Laura’s searching gaze. “It isn’t pretty or romantic. It is ugly and gruesome.” Her voice is flat and Laura knows she’s trying to dissuade her even though she desperately wants Laura to agree to her unasked question.

And, Laura loves her more in that moment than when Carmilla jumped to her death to save her. Because, it’s bigger somehow. This gesture, this choice, is more significant. And, she’s leaving it in Laura’s hands, because she loves her that deeply.

“Why me?” The question is watery with emotion Laura can barely contain.

Carmilla lets out a small laugh that sounds as chocked up as Laura’s question. “Because I’ve never lived in a brighter light than yours. You’re the sun, the moon, the stars and the surety of my world.” She squeezes the warm hands enmeshed in her cool ones. “You lighten my darkness. You make me better.” The words are reverent. “ You’ve always made me better.”

The tears come unbidden. Carmilla’s lips kiss them away. “What does dying feel like?”

“Relief.” No hesitation. “When it finally comes, it’s like the embrace of an old friend meeting you after waiting for many years.”

“What does coming back feel like?” Laura asks this so softly she half thinks she only uttered it in her head.

“It feels like hunger.” Carmilla closes her eyes, her brows crease in memory and something else Laura can’t decipher. “Pained, desperate, all consuming hunger.”

Laura considers the measured tone and cadenced answers with which Carmilla has answered all her questions. She knows the vampire has rehearsed this moment probably for as long as she’s known her, has put forth every argument as honestly and unbiasedly as possible, has prepared herself for the rejection she’s sure will come.

“Will I change?” And this question makes Laura’s heart flutter in fear.

“Yes.” Carmilla’s eyes are open and honest and true, she would never lie to her, not about this. “If not now, in fifty years, a hundred, or two hundred perhaps, but you will change.”

“Will you be with me?” The most important question.

“Always.” Carmilla’s eyes shine. Her soul is communing with Laura’s, and Laura finally, finally understands.

“Ask me.” It’s not a command for they are equals—as they’ve always been—and make no demands of the other. It is a request and a plea.

Carmilla swallows and her eyes dart around nervously preparing herself mentally for finally getting the question out of her mouth. She clears her throat and looks at Laura directly. “Will you stay with me, Laura Hollis?” It’s hushed and heavy with intent and it sounds like a vow and a covenant.

“Yes.” Affirmation and surrender. It’s the answer she was always going to give. As fangs pierce the soft flesh above her carotid artery Laura realizes that’s the reason Carmilla never asked the question. She jerks against the vampire involuntarily but she’s held firmly in place by inhuman strength that has never before been directed at her.

It feels like she’s falling deeply into a sleep she can’t resist. Her limbs are cold. She feels a numbness invade her. It isn’t unpleasant. But she feels her dying body thrash against the unbreakable strength holding her. Hot pinpricks of liquid fall continuously on Laura’s neck; they make her inexplicably sad. And suddenly she’s crying but she can’t remember why.

Death is a lovely sight when it appears to take her away from the achingly cold numbness that has overtaken her body. Carmilla was right about that. Death is a salve and a peace. And, in the interminable moments following its release, Laura forgets living and floats in blissful unbeing.

But something pulls her away from that sea of forgetfulness.

_Someone_.

Someone calling her name. And Laura awakes to a neck offered to her mouth. She takes and satiates a deep thirst. But Carmilla was wrong about the hunger. Laura isn’t desperate with it; there is something more insistent coursing through her.

Laura releases the neck she’s attached to and she searches for lips that taste like life. And, she kisses Carmilla with fervor and a hunger that has nothing to do with blood and sustenance. She’s desperate with love.

And looking into dark eyes, she sees that desperation reflected. But more than anything, Laura sees a promise where she could only discern a question before.

Written in eyes that cannot age is: _forever_.

Laura reverently takes that perpetually eighteen year old face between her hands and makes her own vow and covenant.

"I will stay with you."


End file.
